Matching Leadership Styles

Choosing the right leadership style of the situation or employee is very important, but just as important is choosing the right leadership style for the organization. Every organization has their own culture and that culture often lends itself to a particular leadership style or styles. If the leadership style your manager uses is in contrast with the culture of the organization there can be difficulties. Not only could this lead to a butting heads between the leadership of the organization, but also the employees are often left confused and bewildered by the conflicting information of what they know of the organization and the instructions they are receiving from their manager. Hiring leaders and management for your organization whose leadership styles fit within the style and culture of the company can prevent many roadblocks in accomplishing goals and following the vision of the organization.

Recently I have experienced some negative leadership that seemed to result from a conflict in leadership style. The direct manager of the majority of employees in a relatively small branch of a larger organization had a very laissez-faire leadership style, while the other members of the chain of command within the branch had a more autocratic leadership style. When the other leaders disagreed with the decision or style of the manager they would ask her to change or give different instructions, or give those different instructions to the employee directly. This led to confusion and frustration for the employees when they were unsure of whose instructions to follow or were reprimanded for following the ‘wrong’ set of instructions. As you can imagine an environment of high tempers and high drama was engendered by this lack of united leaders...

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...was being used really fit the needs of the employees or company. Different leadership techniques need to be used depending on the situation, but the leadership styles used also need to align with the culture and overall style of the organization or conflict can occur and in the end the goals and vision of the organization are neglected.

References

Clark, D. (2010). Big dog & little dog’s performance juxtaposition. Retrieved from http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leader.html

Nickels, W.G, McHugh, J.M, & McHugh, S.M. (2010). Understanding business. New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies.

Szilagyi, A. D. & Schweiger, D.M. (1984). Matching managers to strategies: A review and suggested framework. Academy of Management Review, 9(4), 626-637.

Zenger, J., Folkman, J. & Stinnett, K. (2010). Coaching excellence. Leadership Excellence, 27(7), 20-20.